EDITOR'S NOTE: 3/28

Published: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 at 4:00 p.m.

Last Modified: Wednesday, March 26, 2014 at 4:34 p.m.

So what to do when spring broke?

Not moaning so much as reflecting, post car-repair bills, when the thin green line between healthy amusement budgeting (including not just movies you want to see, but the “Eh, it’s matinee price on a Sunday” flicks) and “Cheese crackers are a balanced meal, right?” blazes down laser-edged like that beam the eye doc blinds you with just prior to admonishing you for blinking.

It’s a quiet week in Lake Studentsbegone; what exists to amuse? What is Tuscaloosa without its U, a broader question not entirely answered even by all the varied works of arts and entertainment groups — from Theatre Tuscaloosa to Well That’s Cool to The Rude Mechanicals to Kentuck and more — not tied to the Tide?

Though our city is always linked with UA, economically and in less tangible ways, we shouldn’t sag into post-date, Spanx-off relief just because 30,000-plus young people have temporarily absconded with youth, energy and ready cash.

We have standbys: our parks, books, music ... and, of course, that guy on a boat. Darren Aronofsky’s “Noah” opens today, looking from previews like a cross between “Gladiator,” Cecil B. DeMille and John Cleese’s “Fierce Creatures.” So in addition to the typical gristle of a thinking-man’s good vs. evil epic — Aronofsky doesn’t do light; his previous works include near-hysterical surrealism in “Black Swan,” “Pi” and “The Fountain,” along with grim-gritty “The Wrestler” and “Requiem for a Dream” — there’s days of speculation to chew on.

Such as never mind the heft of a vessel needed to tote seven pairs each of this earth’s non-water-dwelling creatures — ever been to an actual 100-acre zoo, one bearing only a fraction of the earth’s beasts? — tell me: Who and what was feeding the carnivores? And what poor red-headed stepchild of Shem — yes, the fingers badly want to type “Shemp” — got stuck with sweeping up after, even if only to dump the refuse overboard in a conveniently provided 40 days and 40 nights toilet bowl?

These things will plague me while watching Aronofsky’s cruise ship, built to scale according to cubits inscribed in the book, float away from the dirty animals.

Of course there’s also the whole “Why would an all-powerful being create flawed creatures, then horrifically murder them because they proved to be, well, flawed?” in the first place, but let’s stick with tiny messes we can sweep up.

Speaking of Putin, I’ve hit a solution, thanks to days of quiet broke reflection: Lock him and Joe Biden inside a steel cage. Two superpowers enter Thunderdome; one bloodied but victorious Biden will leave. The other guy’s clearly over-compensating, with flagrant shirtlessness that would put Matthew McConaughey to shame — assuming he had any — and because, since childhood, he’s been too aware his name is pronounced “pootin’.” Cry me a river, Vlad.

Maybe the hours can fill up with a “Twilight Zone” marathon. Driving this quieter-than-usual town Monday afternoon, I drove past multiple doppelgangers for friends either gone or really gone, gone, gone. Rod Serling prepped me for this — along with Messrs. Poe, Shakespeare, Straub, James, Dickens, King and Bradbury, as well as of course our own Kathryn Tucker Windham — so I didn’t actually wreck the car, maybe because none of them stuck a thumb out and said, “I believe you’re going my way.”

Or we can cruise Youtube for past-the-curve “Happy” videos. The time to strike was oh, about .01 seconds after Meryl Streep shook what remains of her groove thing at the Oscars, but it’s like that Harlem Shake-iness: You can’t stop a wave, even one that crested weeks ago and has already returned far out to sea, or sunk deep in as that crusty smelly foam, down amongst the pebbles.

And we can forget those best forgotten, while still offering the dignity encoded in Mark Twain’s last-known written statement: “The Impartial Friend: Death, the only immortal who treats us all alike, whose pity and whose peace and whose refuge are for all — the soiled and the pure, the rich and the poor, the loved and the unloved.”

Not going that way. Not for a while yet.

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